


Sing Me To Sleep

by amourlamonde16



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 14:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3695768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amourlamonde16/pseuds/amourlamonde16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth and Daryl have a moment beside a bonfire at Alexandria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Me To Sleep

Daryl watched Beth under his bangs from directly across the bonfire, his eyes watched the flames flicker in hers.

The meeting Deanna had set up was coming to a close, so only Rick, Maggie, he, and Beth remained. It had been mostly quiet, almost uncomfortably so really, but then Beth took in a breath and let out a few sweet lines, her eyes closing lightly as the melody slipped into the near silent space. The other two turned their attention to the blonde, Maggie taking her hand with a teary eyed smile, Ricks head tilting to attention, and Daryl had barely taken his eyes off of her since she got back anyways.

_“I can't sleep tonight_

_Wide awake and so confused_

_Everything's in line_

_But I am bruised_

_I need a voice to echo_

_I need a light to take me home_

_I kinda need a hero_

_Is it you?”_

Her eyes flickered up to Daryl’s during those last lines, and she went softly silent.

They both knew that the last thing she needed, at least survival wise, was a hero. She was more than capable of saving herself out there, but Daryl also knew that there was something missing from her. She rarely smiled anymore, was suddenly very withdrawn, maybe even a little bit like him before he’d had the privilege of true family and love, and she was jumpy at best.

She was like a cat that had been abandoned, forced to live on her own, and when someone tried to take her home now, the owners would say, “God, now we know why she was on her own…”, but she didn’t want to be this way, that much he could plainly see. There was something desperate in her eyes, something pained about her expression after the song had faded.

Breaking the silence that had once again settled between the four people, Glenn walked up and placed a hand on Maggie’s shoulder. The brunette lifted her own hand up to cover his and smiled up at her husband. Then Glenn turned to Rick and said, “Carl wants you.”

Nodding, Rick stood, squeezing Beth’s shoulder as he passed. Glenn gave Daryl a pointed look as he squeezed his wife’s shoulder and quietly said, “Maggie, why don’t you come inside? You’re shivering.”

Maggie was obviously cold, the winter winds chilling her even with her sister pressed to her side. After a moment of considering what to do, she gave Beth a worried glance, who simply nodded lightly in response, letting her know that she would be fine, and so the elder Greene sister had Glenn help her stand. “Come inside soon, kay?” Maggie said to Beth, kissing the top of her head and giving her a sharp look, though a relieved smile was still lighting her features.

“Kay,” Beth replied quietly, watching Maggie walk hand in hand with Glenn down the street. Beth turned her eyes back to the fire, pulling her jacket tighter around her as her baby blues tried to singe the fire.

“Ya’ cold?” Daryl asked, his voice coming out gravely, and so he cleared his throat before continuing. “I can give ya’ my jacket…”

Beth looked up at him, those scarred, burning, sapphires catching his cold midnight gaze in a clash between frozen and heated stares that seemed to have them both a little transfixed and startled. She just nodded slowly, and so he got up, shrugging the leather off of his body and draping it over her shoulders, taking a stubborn seat next to her once she was thoroughly nestled in his coat.

After a moment of silence, she glanced at him again. Not saying anything, but then turning to him, a little light of happiness in her eyes. “You’re still so sweet,” she said, a small smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “Probably more so than I remember.”

He scoffed in response, watching the flames, almost afraid to look at her, which was absolutely ridiculous considering how much he had kept an eye on her since she got back. Maybe it was because now, she was looking back, or maybe it was because of the sweeping return of that same tension from their last night at the funeral home. Maybe he was just a coward when it came to throwing down with Beth Greene.

After a few very long minutes of Beth just staring at him, his eyes twitched in her direction, and his shoulders shifted under the sudden tight weight of the air. “What?” he asked, his voice a little higher than he had intended, and he nearly flushed in embarrassment.

“Daryl Dixon… Did you miss me?” she asked, earning his full, undivided attention.

He took in a sharp breath, taking in the smooth features of her familiar face, though her edges were now sharpened by the demanding nature of the world, but she was still beautiful. She would always be beautiful, he determined.

He choked on his words, his eyes stinging with the tears that were trying to jab their way out. She took his hand, that burning gaze softening, showing that she was seeing right through his tough exterior, just like before, just like always… “I missed ya’ so bad Beth Greene…” he replied, his words shaky, but audible.

Then Beth smiled a real, big, genuine smile, for the first time since she arrived at Alexandria, her eyes glistening. “Me too, Daryl,” she said, her tears bubbling over and sliding down her cheeks. “I missed you so much…”

And then they locked themselves in a tight embrace, her arms around his neck, burying his face in the crook of her neck. He wrapped his arms securely around her, the leather of his jacket still around her shoulders pulling on his skin, but he barely felt it. He was too caught up in the feeling of being surrounded by everything he had been missing, and was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he saw her emerge from the treeline, bloody, beaten, scarred, but still, always, oh so beautiful. No matter what, she would always be his light. Turns out his light is stubborn, and it takes more than a bullet to the head to keep her from shining, and he couldn’t be happier.

The sobs he had been trying to hold back, not very well really, spilled forth when she said the most truthful words he had ever heard in his entire life.

“I’m home…”

Yes. She was. And so was he. He was finally home...

And then she squeezed him tighter, their bodies both shaking with emotion, rocking with the streaming sobs the escaped their lips. Once they had stopped crying, though they still clung to each other for dear life, he mumbled for her to, “Keep singin’” just like he had that night when she sat at that dusty piano and he lay ominously in that casket. And so she did, pausing for a moment to find a line that fit the moment before she began. Than she took in a breath, just like earlier, and let the words slip from her lips.

_“I know you’re there_

_You could be_

_My sanity_

_Bring me to peace_

_Sing me to sleep…_

_I don't know what I'd do without you_

_Your words are like a whisper come through_

_As long as you are with me here tonight_

_I'm good...”_

As the words whispered into the wind, Daryl slowly drifted off, and Beth wasn’t far behind him, both emotionally exhausted. In their sleep, they breathed each other in, held each other close, and fell into a comfortably deep sleep beside the fire, Beth’s head against his chest with an arm wrapped around his torso and Daryl had an arm around Beth, his hand clinging to the dip between her ribs and her hip. Both still had red rimmed eyes, but gentle looks on theirs faces, neither dreaming, because their reality was now enough. They had their family, and they had each other.

And that’s how Carol and Maggie found them, both women confused to say the least, but finding the soft and loving atmosphere gently pulling their lips into lighthearted smiles as they exchanged a twinkling look, and leaving them be.


End file.
